Open Access

Smart Open Access compliance tracking, flexible workflows,
and powerful reporting

 

As the global Open Access (OA) movement continues to evolve, so too does the complexity of managing compliance. Research institutions now face a growing array of mandates from funders, governments, and internal bodies, each with their own unique requirements.

 

The Open Access Monitor in Symplectic Elements is developed to ensure institutions can meet and track compliance with these evolving OA requirements efficiently and effectively. As a powerful, modular component of Symplectic Elements, the OA Monitor helps institutions manage diverse and evolving OA requirements with ease.

Symplectic Elements allows your researchers to easily deposit publications into open repositories with the push of a button, significantly increasing deposit rates. You can monitor, track, prompt, and report on this process; driving open access engagement and compliance in-line with your institutional policies.

monitoring open access

Intelligent data harvesting and easy deposit

Intelligent data harvesting means Symplectic Elements is always working for you in the background, continuously identifying and matching research outputs to populate your publication record. As the metadata of scholarly works is already in Symplectic Elements, full-text deposit becomes as simple as a few mouse clicks.

By supporting multiple, independently configurable policies, the OA Monitor enables flexible workflows and smarter compliance tracking – all while reducing administrative burden and supporting your institutional open access goals.

Open Access 70

Open Access that works for you

Measuring engagement with Open Access policies can be time-consuming and difficult. Administrators often spend valuable time chasing researchers, navigating across systems, and managing varied requirements.

The Open Access Monitor helps you:

  • Guide researchers with homepage prompts tailored by role or department.
  • Embed deposit advice from JISC’s Open Policy Finder, plus custom guidance.
  • Track multiple OA routes: Gold, DOAJ, and repository deposits.
  • Target policies by funder, output type, user group, and more.
  • Report on reuse licences to meet funder sharing requirements.
  • Monitor deposit locations and versions for policy alignment.

Integrate with your broader research ecosystem

The Open Access Monitor connects seamlessly to your systems and workflows, ensuring accurate data flow and enabling end-to-end open access management.

 

We integrate with:

 

Open Access Engagement

Simplify compliance monitoring across multiple policies

The Open Access Monitor gives institutions real-time insight into engagement across multiple policies – making it easy to identify gaps, take corrective actions, and ensure compliance with policies. 

Administrators can quickly visualise engagement levels across departments or groups, take informed action like depositing on behalf of researchers, and highlight high performers as advocates.

  • Track compliance across multiple OA policies in real time.
  • Monitor who has deposited what, where, and when.
  • Flag non-compliant outputs and take corrective action.
  • Record article-level exceptions and opt-outs in bulk.
  • Generate compliance reports by policy, funder, researcher, or department.
  • Delegate tasks with OA-specific staff roles.

Gain clarity and confidence in your reporting

Whether you’re tracking for the REF, NIH Public Access Policy, or ARC mandates, the Open Access Monitor surfaces the right information for the right stakeholders, at the right time. By automating compliance tracking and surfacing open access status clearly, including the OA Monitor as part of your Symplectic Elements solution helps institutions:

  • Improve the completeness and accuracy of OA data.
  • Lighten the load on researchers and support teams.
  • Confidently evidence OA performance to funders, partners, and leadership.

Learn more about how we support the REF

The Francis Crick Institute - Figshare integration

A Pathway to Open Research with Richer Research Profiles

The Francis Crick Institute is using technology to empower its researchers to have richer research profiles and to make it easier for them to publish their papers and data Open Access.

The best-in-class research information management system which brings together Symplectic Elements and Figshare allows them to:

  • Monitor their publications better
  • Capture manuscripts earlier to add acknowledgements of grants and all Crick staff contributions
  • Get a repository that handles both papers and data for open research

Read case study >

Our integrations at work

Learn more about Figshare & Elements together


Have more than one repository?

No problem! Elements can be integrated with multiple repositories simultaneously allowing institutions to consolidate deposit and monitoring activities within a single interface. 

Don’t see your repository? Contact us!

We wanted to create a single, multi-university resource that provides
enhanced visibility into expertise, equipment and research
support services and available IP.

Tim Cain, Ohio Innovation Exchange

This tool connects our scholarly and research expertise with audiences like media,
prospective graduate students, and academic collaborators, while simultaneously
helping faculty keep track of the very important work they do. It is a game-changer for U of T.

Associate Vice-President Research, University of Toronto

The deeply integrated environment we now have will greatly enhance
our ability to manage the range of repository activities and strengthen
our position in preparing for any future research assessment exercises.

Digital Development Manager, University of Sussex

Researcher profiles and end-to-end funded research
project management all now take place in the one interface,
which has huge benefits to our researchers.

Liam Cleere, University College Dublin

The discovery module has provided a delightful and fantastic
searchable public interface to our to our faculty.

Paul Bergen, Tufts University

The rate of deposit has increased by 1000% within 12 months following the switch-on of
the publication prompt in Elements and discussion about the HEFCE Open Access policy.

Queen Mary University of London

Elements impressed us with its simplicity, flexibility and control
for individual faculty members, and great responsiveness with customer service.

Clarke Iakovakis, Oklahoma State University

I think the most important feature Symplectic Elements came with was interoperability
The fact that it had that flow through profiles to the repository was really, really valuable for us.

Research Advisor, La Trobe University

We love everything Symplectic adds to Scholars.
It's definitely a timesaver for our researchers.

Duke University

Symplectic Elements' ability to efficiently organise research outputs,
manage researcher profiles, and seamlessly integrate with internal and external systems,
coupled with features like internal research assessment support and flexible self-service
reporting, make it the ideal choice for showcasing and managing our research activity effectively.

University Librarian, Cranfield University